Polling

On the evening of the 2017 election, the Minx and I went to see the album launch of Public Service Broadcasting's 'Every Valley' album in Ebbw Vale. Despite a lacklustre campaign, the Tories were generally reckoned to be on course for an eighty seat majority. The gig seemed a good way to take our minds off that!

So what JOY to come out of the gig to see the exit polls predicting a hung Parliament. Against all the odds, Corbyn's Labour Party had done what seemed impossible. The future looked bright! Or brighter, anyway.

Except that Corbyn's performance over the next couple of years was, at best, disappointing. Always charming in his video clips on Twitter and compelling in his speeches to the #JC4PM faithful, he was a weekly letdown at PMQs - forever aiming wide of open goals - and terrible in any interview situation, where he would come across as peevish and irritable.

Somehow, though, I managed to convince myself that he would be a success at this election: the manifesto was strong, McDonnell was great in all the situations where Corbyn was bad, Johnson was an embarrassment to himself and his party, the youth vote was strong, and so was the turnout. All the signs were good.

And then, at ten o'clock, the exit polls: Labour had been annihilated. And, more than anything else, it appears Corbyn is to blame. 

****
-11.5 kgs
Reading: 'Frank Derrick's Holiday Of A Lifetime' by J B Morrison